


The Ruins of Darkscape

by KoboldKing



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic, r/writingprompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 17:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KoboldKing/pseuds/KoboldKing
Summary: In a world of my own making, I face my most hated critic.





	The Ruins of Darkscape

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an r/WritingPrompts thread.

He looked up at the two black suns, and to my utmost horror he rolled his eyes.

"Oh," he sighed dramatically. He liked doing that when he felt put upon, especially when he was distracted from his work. "We're in... Darkset, was it?"

"Dark _scape_!" I snapped. This wasn't going at all like I planned, and my indignation was flaring. "You're on the planet of the first novel in the Darkscape trilogy."

"Good God." I saw his eyes widen, and I smirked at the horror I saw in them. "You wrote _three_ of them?"

My smirk vanished, and I felt my jaw drop. My critic rubbed his forehead, pacing on the black soil that once was the Great City of Greater Kedatholis before the Dustening.

"Bad enough one," he complained, kicking a skull in irritation. "But three? Let me guess. The second one delves into darker territory, ending on a cliffhanger, and the third introduces so many new characters it hasn't the time to resolve all the plot threads you haphazardly threw into the mix."

I sputtered. "You... you haven't even read them!"

He shrugged. "Don't be offended, then, if I'm wrong."

His nose wrinkled, as though smelling something unpleasant. "What is that?"

I put my head up haughtily. "Ha! Well, if you'd _really_ read my first novel as closely as you say, you'd know that's brimstone. The scent that always propagates from portals to the Dark Realm."

"Cliche," my critic said, grimacing. "But why would anyone open a portal to the Dark Realm here?"

"If you'd read my second novel you'd know."

"I feel confident if I'd read the second novel I'd have killed myself promptly afterwards, saving us both this trouble."

A hot feeling started bubbling up inside of me. The feeling that always comes when something you've worked hard on is scorned.

"Asshole," I snapped.

"You could at least one of your made up swears," he said. "Krod, was it? Or... bambersnapper?"

"That one was a joke! Not a commonly used swear in this setting!"

"Your _worldbuilding_ is the joke." He let out a dramatic sigh. "Alright, alright, let me see if my memory is up to snuff. Who opened a portal to the Dark Realm here?"

I wanted to punch him in the jaw. _God,_ I wanted to punch him in the jaw. The only thing that kept me from doing it was my intellectual superiority. Real authors, I knew, didn't solve their problems with violence. They solved them by dragging their critics into a fantasy pocket dimension of their own design. At least in my family.

"In the second novel," I said, with saintly restraint, "It is revealed that the ruins of the Great City of Great Kadatholis-"

"Is that with an 'E' or an 'A'? I seem to recall you wobbling back and forth."

"Always with an 'A'!" I snapped. "Shut up and listen. As I was saying, in the second book, it's revealed that the ruins of the Greater City of Great Kadathalis were caused by the Dark Cult. With a group of thirteen Darkbinders, they opened a gigantic portal to the Dark Realm that sucked the Darkessence out of the entire population, reducing the city to a barren husk."

He looked at me incredulously. For a moment, I felt pride radiating out from within me. He was finally starting to realize just how deep my lore went.

"...why the hell is everything called dark?" he asked, shaking his head. "Darkscape. Dark Realm. Darkbinder. Darkessence. I'm losing my goddamn Darkmind."

"It is _symbolic_ ," I began furiously, "of how we think of things we don't understand-"

"Also: thirteen Darkbinders?" He fixed me with one eye, as he always did, and I struggled to keep my anger up against his judgement. "You wrote in the first book no more than one person could keep an active, ugh, _Darkspell_ at once. You wrote it implicitly."

"The twist is that the Darkgod was powering them so that-"

"No." His tone was quiet. He never really raised his voice during his so-called critiques. Only made it abundantly clear how disgusted and disappointed he was. "That isn't a twist."

"How do you get to define what is or isn't a twist?"

"Because I'm a good writer," he said flatly. "Any good writer will tell you a twist doesn't work unless it's set up. I could say, _but secretly, the Unicorn Queen had invested me with her magic all along,_ but it wouldn't work unless I'd hinted it. Unless you could go back, read the story, and realize the signs were there all along. That the way characters acted, the things they were surprised or not surprised about, were all consistent with what was to come."

I was fuming. I was _seething._ He had the audacity to lecture me *here?* In the place *I* created?

Wasn't there anywhere I could do things my own way?

"Listen," he went on, "Just... listen. You have the gift to create whole worlds in your head. You can see them, hear them, smell them, feel them, taste them. That's a gift that deserves more than tired old cliches and forced twists. That's a gift that deserves love, for your world and your reader."

"I _do_ love-"

"What you love," he said firmly, "Is seeming _clever._ You haven't put thought into this world. I can feel how shaky it is under my feet. You don't know where the stones of Kadatholis came from. You don't know what the people valued, or what names they called their _'dark suns,'_ or how many of them had heard of the cult who destroyed them, or even how to spell their damn city's name. All this city is for is making a grisly backdrop to scare your readers with. To scare *me* with."

I bowed my head, struggling to come up with answers. The stones of Kedatholis came from... the mines of Darkdepths? But no, the Darkdragon was there. They couldn't have shipped stones from there. Maybe...

I tried to become angry again. I wanted to wheel on my critic with a snappy response, _forcing_ him to see how wrong he was, how I could do things _my way_ and not have to listen to his damn advice a moment longer.

"Son," he said again. "You can do better. With your gift, the power you've inherited, you can do _anything._ Start treating your world with the passion that deserves."

With that my dad snapped his fingers, and a radiant ethereal portal made of swirling pink energy appeared. The shape of a majestic pink unicorn appeared in it, one with a mane that flowed in a wind that wasn't there and a golden crown atop her head. My father swung up onto her back, and without another word they were riding back to the magical city of Uum, the setting of all ten of his popular novels beloved by children and adults alike.

I slumped under the black suns--what do black suns even _look_ like?--and tried not to cry.

My critic had bested me again.

 

 


End file.
